Vietnam- Ha Long Bay

Such an adventure! We resisted planning in advance because we had already been accidentally roped into too many tour group scams in Vietnam by this point, so we made our way to nearby Cat Ba Island with the idea of planning our trip to Ha Long Bay once we got there. Long story short, we didn't get to Ha Long Bay until 4 days later, and there were sooooooooooo many frustrating moments in between. But, if we could go back, we do it the exact same way. Our experiences on Cat Ba Island, Lan Ha Bay, Ha Long City, and finally Ha Long Bay were memories we'll carry forever.

We did our best to cherish even the most miserable of days of this trip... We have definitely learned that some of the worst memories are ones that make the best stories, are times that we learned the most (either about traveling or about each other), and are generally the most fun moments to re-live later. 

Lan Ha Bay

We stayed here the first night, on an island in Lan Ha Bay -- the single worst night of our entire trip. After arriving to Cat Ba Island and realizing that the "cool" tour agency we planned to use had changed ownership and never updated their website (upon which we'd been relying heavily), we found ourselves up a creek without a paddle... no idea how to plan our trip to Ha Long Bay, and nowhere to sleep that night. We turned to another "cool" tour agency on the island, and they booked us the last available bungalow at this "beach resort" in Lan Ha Bay. Sounded great to us, and it's cute from the outside, BUT!..

Here's the back of our bungalow.  Mystery solved as to why it was available for rent at the last minute. It's the island's dumpster!  Our bungalow was covered with ants, which crawled on us all night. Our drain was plugged so the entire bathroom floor was submerged in inches of nasty water and dirt. Our toilet wouldn't flush. And to top it off, it was the single hottest night that either of us has ever experienced (no exaggeration). The island is in a cove and the karsts block all air flow, so the place was like a furnace. Our whole trip was hot, and with humidity of what felt like 300%, but something about this place was different, in a torturous kind of way. Have you ever tried falling asleep while profusely sweating? It was a first for us! Enough complaining. Suffice it to say, staying here was MISERABLE!

The "morning after," we hired kayaks and paddled around Lan Ha Bay just the two of us. It was bliss!  Perfect weather, totally peaceful, and just what we needed. Lan Ha Bay is just next to Ha Long Bay, and with similar landscape, just smaller karsts, and fewer big boats. We explored through floating fishing villages, wound through all of the islands with the help of a map, and eventually paddled back to Cat Ba Island. This photo is the only one we took all day.

Our first view of Ha Long Bay

View from our ferry... it was us, a bunch of buses and cars, and hundreds of Vietnamese locals/tourists going from Cat Ba Island to Ha Long City. So fun! The extent to which we love public transportation of all forms continues to grow.

Finally aboard our cruise boat in Ha Long Bay!

Rowing away in defeat after no one on our boat wanted to buy shells.

floating fishing village

scrumptious fresh spring rolls with homemade fish sauce (the product of a cooking class on board our boat)

storm rolling in

Carter driving our day boat

We kayaked through several caves like this, which lead to hidden lagoons on the other side. Oddly, there were hundreds of strange prehistoric looking blue jelly fish in the lagoons

floating fishing village

Surprise Cave (a popular tourist stop in Ha Long Bay)

Meet Celeste and Kirby. They were on our boat in Ha Long Bay and we enjoyed getting to know them over a couple of days. You'll see them again in our pictures from Hoi An. A treat to meet some friends!